


Ginger

by lesandwichpants



Series: The 23rd Doctor [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Doctor Meets Companion, Doctor Who References, Doctor/Companion Friendship, Gen, Made-up Species, New Companion, New Doctor (Doctor Who), doctor who adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesandwichpants/pseuds/lesandwichpants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctor has reached his 23rd incarnation, just over 2000 years old. He meets his soon-to-be companion in a typical "save the day" episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ginger

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fiction piece, so please be kind with me. I'd appreciate it if you left feedback or comments (maybe on what you'd like to see next? or if I should continue this fic at all). Thank you.

 

It was raining. I mean, it's always raining in Oregon, so I shouldn't make it sound like that's shocking. It's around 9 in the morning and it's a Monday, which, of course, means time to go to work. I don't hate my job. Quite the opposite, really. I work in an observatory, so I basically gape at stars 24/7. They fascinate me, honestly. Being an astronomer was my dream ever since I was child. Anyway, it's the same routine every day: look at stars, write down educated guess of lifespan, eat bag of chips, repeat. Not that I was complaining, I mean, I made enough money to casually spend it on about 20 bags of chips every day.

I share a lab with my trusty partner, Adam. We usually stick to our own business, though. Anyway, here's where things start to get weird. I was looking through the telescope when I start hearing gurgling sort of sounds. I don't think I remember Adam coming  in . I glance around and there was no one there and forget about it. I was looking at a beautiful binary system about an hour later when I hear  the sound again. Except this time, it was louder than before. I look around and still nothing; just several tables with beakers and liquid from previous experiments in them. I heard the noise again.

I decided to walk around and try  my best to find out what the noise was. At  first, I thought Adam was trying to play a trick on me, but  i t's not like there's really any good places to hide. Then, I heard some rustling and pounding on what sound ed  to  be a hollow metal container. That's when I remembered about the lockers we have for our coats. I cautiously walked towards the room with the lockers in them and tried to listen for the sound again. It wasn't hard considering there wasn't a door to the room. It was coming from my locker. There was a gurgling sound... coming from my locker. That's enough to give you the creeps.

"Adam, is that you?" I asked my locker. No reply. I didn't want to be like those stupid girls in horror movies where they open a closet and a murderer with a chainsaw comes out and kills them, so I armed myself with a scalpel which I guess wasn't much better. Anyway, I open the door and Adam falls on me. I was utterly disgusted because he left a slimy, yellow substance on my coat. I put down the useless weapon and put some gloves on. I tried to put him lying on his back instead of his stomach, and I was horrified. His face was bloody and his mouth impossibly wide as if he were a cartoon character. God, I didn't know what to do. He seemed dead. I was so very wrong because he abruptly grabbed hold of my ankle and tried pulling me closer. I did what every normal person would do. Scream. I tried kicking him (or it) away to no avail.

It's nails were digging in to my skin and there was a pool of blood around my right foot. That's when a strange man appeared  beside me  and hit that thing on the floor with a bucket. I was completely and utterly in shock. What the hell happened to Adam? Why was he like this? Who is this guy? "Sorry, to burst in," he says, "Well, not really. Considering I probably just saved your life. You should be thanking me, really. I don't think I get thanked enough for this job. You should probably take care of that leg." He pointed to my ankle. I gaped at him like deer caught in the headlights. This man comes to my lab, throws a bucket at  my (probably  zombified ) lab partner, and then sasses me for not thanking him?

"What the hell is going on here?! How did you get here?! What is wrong with Adam?!" I yelled at him.

"Right. I'm the doctor. He's infected. Would you please stop bleeding?!" Still wide-mouthed, I tried my best to walk over to the first aid kit on the wall. I opened it up and tried to apply some hydrogen peroxide to my wounds without tearing up. I failed. I bandaged it up and  tried to  walk properly. He took out a little gray thing that made sounds and lit up. Then he seemed satisfied with the stick - like gray thing and touched the yellow, slimy substance with his hands and licked it. God, he was crazy.

"What the hell are you doing? Did you honestly just lick that?!" He was mad. Absolutely mad.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist,"  Knickers?  Must be British . "I took precautions, of course."

"Oh, really? How? With your gray stick thingy? Please enlighten me with how that qualifies at all as taking precautions?" I snapped.

"It's not a 'gray stick thingy'! It's a sonic screwdriver!"

"A what?"

"A sonic-never mind." Ugh. A sonic screwdriver? What was he talking about? This day has gone absolutely mad. I try to calm down.

"What's going on? What's happened to him?" I ask.

"He's been infected with hilioprondome ." He was making no sense at all.

"Sorry. What?!"

"Christ . What year did I land in?  Hilioprondome  is an infection caused by the Cytogens!"

"The what?!"

"Oh dear lord. You know. The Cytogens? Race of parasites that feed off of tissues in the muscle. Honestly, what are they teaching you in school?" He takes out some reading glasses from his coat pocket. His coat was very formal and a sort of dark brown color. He had a white button-down shirt underneath and a black tie. He wore dark blue jeans, though. He looked ridiculous. "Right. Ok. Seems my sonic screwdriver says the infection originated here. Have you been playing with thermonuclear fusion and animal corpses, lately?"

"Where would I even-" He cut me off with a shush. Who was he to shush me in my lab? It was the gurgling noise again. Adam! We both turned around to see him attempting to stand and hurl towards us.

"Right. Ok. What's your name?" the strange man's voice showing hints of nervousness.

"Ginger." I respond.

"Right. Ginger?" he turns his face to me and I turn mines to his , "Run!" He grabs me by my coat and practically drags  me along. We run through the halls and exit the building. It had already stopped raining.  We make way to the streets and I glance around to still see that thing chasing us. It was running like an athlete and a normal human being, but that smile was still unrealistic and covered in blood. I turn my face back in horror. We turn a corner and there's this blue police box.  Please don't tell me this is our escape plan.

"Are you mad? Who knows how strong this thing is! And we're going inside a tiny, wooden public calling box?" He doesn't answer. Instead, he frantically searches for something in his coat pockets. It was a key. The creature thing was mere feet away from us. I had no choice but to go inside with him. Let me tell you, I must'v e been dreaming! There was this whole room inside a tiny police box.

"Right. Bigger on the inside. " he says, closing the normal looking doors of this room or whatever this is. There's thumping and growling outside. "Don't worry. We're safe. Well ...  sort of." I couldn't say anything. It was impossible. This whole thing. He looks through several boxes and throws a lot of things away. "Where is it..." he  says to himself.

"Is he dead?" I bring myself to ask, "Adam. That... infected  man ... is he dead?" He stops in his tracks and looks at me. His facial expressions changed completely from angst to pity.

"I'm so sorry," he says. "I can't save him now, but please. Now is really not the time to  mourn his death ." That face is gone now, and he keeps looking through boxes. The whole room was strange. It was in a theme of gray and brown. I was still next to the entrance. Still in shock.

"Where am I?" I ask him, not really sure if I'll understand the answer.

"It's called a TARDIS. Short for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space if you were curious." There was a short pause,  and then I asked for his name. "The doctor." he says. That's not a name.

"Well. Doctor who?" I asked. Then I was startled by the commotion the thing I knew as Adam was making outside.

"Yes! I found it!" It was a sort of electronic box thing with a little needle sticking out it. "Right. I'll inject him with this and the parasites should leave him alone. Every parasite growing in the colony in your lab has simultane ously attached itself to Adam which has made the effect worse than usual. Which is why he can move  after he's dead. Several thousand parasites are feeding off of his tissue and controlling it as well." That's probably why his mouth was so wide. So many insect things trying to get into your body at once. God, I'm so sorry , Adam . "Ok. Here's the plan-"

"Whoa . Wait what? Plan?  I don't want to be involved in this. The FBI and CIA and-"

"Hey. Forget about your U.S. secret services right now. If any of the Cytogens infect another person it'll be so much harder to save humanity." Bold statement. Thumping and growling can still be heard.

"Ok... Fine. What do you want me to do?" I'm so gonna regret this.

"That's the spirit! Ok, right. So I'm going to inject him with this and hopefully it'll release toxin that kills off all the parasites. I need you to distract the thing, so I can get it from behind."

"You're mad. What if I get infected?!"

"Don't worry, the only way to be infected is to actually have a parasite inside of your body which is what the yellow substance is. Basically, eggs that can only hatch attached to any tissue. Don't worry about that. It dies in a few minutes if it isn't ." I sighed. I can't believe I'm actually going to do this. I open the door and sprint outside to the opposite side of the street . The monster thing is startled and turns to me.

"HEY! Over here!" I start yelling and waving my arms like an idiot. It starts to run towards me when the doctor leaps out of the police box and practically stabs him with the machinery. The creature stops and instantly falls to the floor. It pained me to know that it was once Adam. What am I going to tell my boss? I walked back towards them. The body was dissolving it seemed. The doctor motioned me to come back inside.

"Well. That was fun wasn't it?" he says.

I gave him a nasty look. "Fun?" I say, "D o you call killing these creatures and a proper human fun?! "

"Stop that. I just saved your race from well, probably extinction.  Cytogens are a deadly race. Very hard to kill after having colonized several bodies. You should be thanking me." I should be. Who knows what would've happened if he hadn't shown up. At least, nobody else got hurt.

"You're right, I'm sorry. Thank you." I hung my head.  My ankle still hurt, but at least the bleeding stopped. "Who are you? Really?" He sighed.  He walked up a few stairs to the middle of the room. There were chairs along the rails and motioned for me to sit.

"I'm a time traveler. Well... a time lord. The TARDIS is what I use to travel. It can travel anywhere in time and space pretty much."

"So...you're an alien?"

"Well, to me, you humans are the aliens." I cracked a smile at that. "Do you want to see?" I didn’t  respond. "All of time and space that is?"  He's mad . "Here, let me show you." He jumps from his seat and almost dances to the middle of the room where he starts pulling switches and levers. Then, the whole room shakes a bit and there's a  whoosing sound. He opens the door and oh my God. It was the Sun. Right before my eyes. Really bright actually, but the doctor offered me some shades. They were leopard printed and I started laughing. It felt good to just feel happy after what happened today. I saw some of the other planets. The view was incredible. So much better than sitting in a lousy observatory. "Sorry for being a bit rude earlier." His voice drags me out of my thoughts. More like really rude.

"It's fine."

 "So what do you think? Care to join me? Ms. Ginger?" The thought was strange. Traveling to unimaginable places with a man I've known only mere hours, but what the hell. I didn't have much to loose anyway. I nodded, excited for the things to come.

"Right. Ok. Well, this might just be the first time I've taken an American human as a companion." Ugh. The British! I think aloud. "I'm not British. I'm not even human! "

"You have the accent, though!" He went back to the control panel sort of thing in the room and started pushing buttons and levers. He had a grin on his face and soon, I did, too. I don't really know what to expect, but I'm hoping it'll be brilliant. I just hope he isn't always so sassy.


End file.
